As a work in progress

I can't help but share all the "working" pictures of the house because it really was a lot of work and I wanna make sure those that offered their assistance get their moment in the sun so to speak :) This was some night...we had to sand off the old finish/linseed oil on the floor which turned out to be quite a bit larger undertaking than we were ready for. Lets just put it this way: The Lores babysat all day long then after Daniel was at home he babysat and put corban to bed for me (yes, he is the BEST uncle in the entire universe) while my Dad, Mom, Jack, and I were doing various sanding and such. until 4 AM sunday morning. All this following a whole day of unloading the storage unit (when jack tweeked his back pretty badly) and moving all of that stuff from the storage unit into the house then starting the sanding around 2:30 PM.

The huge rental sanders that we had to use were crazy. Because they had used linseed oil to finish the floors, the sandpaper would get these discusting deposits from the oil getting heated by the sander then forming these indestructable balls on the bottom of the sandpaper rendering it unuseable. After burning through about 10 sheets of $8.99/sheet sandpaper and not even finishing one room-we headed back to home depot on 2100 south to figure out a solution. (the folks at the centerville home depot were somewhat...less than helpful the first time) After a very wonderful person behind the paint counter knew what he was talking about and took us under his wing to help us figure out a solution we were on our way again with: Laquer thinner (which emits deadly chemicals and toxins when using it *thumbs up*) Rubber Gloves (that slowly get eaten by the laquer thinner so that it's not slowly eating your hands *another thumbs up*), Boxes and Boxes of Rags (to apply the laquer thinner and the varnish in case we ever made it to that step) More sandpaper, A new kind of floor sander, and some candy bars for my belly. By the time we had grabbed a bite and were ready to get started sanding again it was around 9 PM. Luckily Jack and my Dad sacrificed themselves to apply the laquer thinner to all the floors so that my mom and I didn't have to breathe the fumes. Then we had to wait a good 30 min for that to disolve the linseed oil before we could start sanding again. Luckily we're close to Rocky Mountain Raceway so we could see and hear parts of the goingings on there that night-just rubbing in the fact that we had tickets to go that night and were stuck inhaling deadly chemicals without the joy of seeing drag racing or the fireworks. Anyway after we started sanding again it went very very well. We'd get a room done with sanding-then vaccum it really well then get to sand it again with a smaller grit sand paper-then vaccum it really well again-then get to sand it agian with a smaller grit sandpaper-(see a pattern??)then vaccum it one more time really well.

So maybe that explains the look in this pic... he he.

Eventually all the rooms were done being sanded with the box sander like 3-4 times, and all the edges done by hand with hand sanders , and we were able to go home and get a little shut eye.

Behold the naked wood flooring!!!

so if you ever consider doing your own hard wood-we are now certifiably experts. I think. just know that all in all it was SOOO worth it because every morning when we get up and get to walk on our floors we know that we broke our own backs (as well as my parent's) to make them this beautiful, and we saved about $2,000.

as promised.

These first set are taken the night that we got our keys! Corban crashed on the way to the house and then never woke up agian (until the next morning of corse) so we thought "what an opportune time to show off the sculptured shag that gets to reside in our family room until we have more $$$ to replace it." you know you're jealous.
This is a before pic of the master bedroom. nice blah shelves huh?? more shag.
My stupendous oven that I wish we could keep somehow without letting corban burn a limb off or burn the house down. All the gas knobs are gorgeous but they don't have to be pushed in inorder to get the flame going, thus the fire hazard. same with the burner for the Oven itself, they all have costantly burning pilot lights so you don't ever have to light anything.
Our cool wood burning stove in the Family Room. Can you say Toasty???
The loverly wood paneling in the Family Room. I hope I made the right decision to paint over it...ya think? Oh, and don't fret, we saved all the drapes! ;)

Kitchen cabinets Wall #1. My beautiful stove again...

Second wall of cabinets. note the lack of a dishwasher :( That will be added A-sap.)

Already installed gate at the top of the stairs! Thumbs up to that eh?

Storage room door downstairs. (and you can see a smudge of the tile landing at the bottom of the stairs)

First set of shelves in the freaking sweeeet storage room.

Second set of shelves.

Check the linoleum in the storage room. it says: five buck buy in for texas hold'em nights on a card table with little green transparent visors. ya in???

Can you say: Hooray for a laundry room/closet??? it's really quite large inside.

Inside of the laundry room.

Our downstairs half bath, half water closet. litterally. it's like a little closet changed into a bathroom. Jack can't even sit on the toilet without his knees hitting the wall in front of the toilet. Another bonus to this bathroom??? you get to step up TWICE in that tiny space. Once to get into the bathroom, the second time to sit on the pot. Think of it like a pop up camper bathroom :)

The bedroom to the left of the stairs in the basement. Again with the wood paneling. This room will probably end up being a little play/craft room considering it is about 8'X7'.

The bedroom to the right of the stairs. Wood paneling, but at least it's lighter this go round. This room is like 12'X14' so it'll probably be a second fam./rec room so we can use it for whatever we need to.

The third basement bedroom. and yes. more wood paneling. yipee skippy right?

Before photos. CHECK. I really didn't think that would take fourty five minutes to compile all those. but it did. hope you enjoyed it.

drum roll please:

we are officially the owners of a home!!!! it gets better: the wood floors underneath the carpet are spectacular!!! all we need to do is pull staples, and varnish again! pictures will be coming. I promise. and Happy Birthday to my dad. K, now I gotta go to work. Happy labor day weekend!

lay the kid down already...poor guy.

I saw this video and had to share it. bare with the whole thing, it's cute at the end. have a good one! :)

ew

I was just blog surfin, catching up on peoples blogs while corban is napping...and I microwaved a hot dog to eat for lunch. dang pregnancy. that totally grosses me out that I downed it in like 5 minutes flat and loved every bite. *shivers* ew. anyway, let me know some feedback here about that breaking dawn chat night/house party, even if it's to say you think it would be a stupid idea, at least I'd know what I'm doin here... thanks

eh hem.

I'd like to propose an idea. I finished my copy of breaking dawn. I don't know how I felt about the book, there were so many pluses and minuses. I want to chit chat with ladies about it. So, the proposal is: I think that we should pick a night (in a week or two to let others finish the book) to do a msn chat about it. let me know what cha think. I think that if we get as many ladies as possible (or gents if they've actually read it) "friends of friends of friends" we could get the most amount of it covered. any second that motion? for that matter I would even be willing to host a house party to do this shin dig. finger munchies, and talking about a girly book...sound good? lemme know.
ps. anyone that doesn't have a copy and would like to read it is welcome to my copy.

signing our life away??? maybe not.

We're officially in contract on our little house! It feels scary but at the same time we feel like this is super right for us, so keep your fingers crossed in our behalf.
Also thanks to sami and emily's posts about grandpa romney I bawled my eyes out... and wasn't going to do a post of my own because I can't type if my contacts are floating around my eyeballs... but I think I'm okay now. I do just have to say that it was really the neatest experience the morning he died. I was en route to virginia's house when I felt like I needed to call my dad and see if there was anything he needed before I arrived (I was about 10 blocks away). He answered the phone and told me that he had just passed away a few minutes ago and he just needed us here. I can truly attest that the spirit has been in close proximity to all the romney hearts this week, constantly comforting and reminding us that grandpa is in a much better place, probably riding his horses again. We all were just able to sit in his room with his empty body and recount memories and stories of grandpa, and really take in the fact that we have a clear understanding that he was no longer there, and that he is comfortable now. We really appreciate all the prayers that have been offered in our behalf. We also have had the opportunity to learn more from the amazing example of testimony from grandpa. My dad was talking about when Grandpa was young he would read scriptures with Aunt Evalou and make sure that she had understood what was meant in each scripture that they had talked about in church that day. how many of us would take the opportunity to RE-read scriptures we had discussed in church? I thought that was a very heart warming picture considering the first thing I do after church is run to get the dress off and pants on. We'll miss grandpa romney a lot but we'll see him shortly, after all this life is but a blink of an eye. Grandpa passed away at 11:00 am 8/8/08.